Design of an applicator for microwave-assisted bituminous surface thermal bonding

In this paper a design cycle of an applicator for microwave-assisted bituminous surface thermal bonding is presented. The applicator is equipped with a waveguide nozzle and a hexagonal lattice of cylindrical metallic chokes preventing microwave leakage. The design is performed with the aid of electromagnetic simulations, based on a finite-difference time-domain method. Simulation results are initially validated with experiments and a good agreement is achieved.